Arc 1 – War against Kirigakure

Chapter 1 – War

Illuminated by only the light of the moon a lone man fumbled down the steep rocky slope. He narrowly avoided slipping as he took a sharp turn and tumbled his way right behind one of the bigger rocks. The mix of blood and sweat stuck his brown hair to his forehead as his eyes frantically looked around. He could barely feel his wounded right leg, they struck him just above the knee and he knew he'd be feeling that one for a long time. The rock he sat behind would be enough cover, right? Just for a few minutes, just until he caught his breath.

It would be enough as long as she personally wasn't coming after him because nothing, absolutely nothing escaped her eyes. Maybe she wouldn't come out to chase him. He was just one prisoner, why would she come after him herself, she had her soldiers to do it for her.

The man gritted his teeth, his normally brown eyes turned orange, flaring with anger as he desperately tried to stay silent. He could feel pain from losing his left arm later, when the rest of him made it out of this place alive. For now, he needed to suck it up, not let out a single sound he didn't absolutely need to, and keep moving.

His eyes widened when he felt it. That sinister feeling of immense, overwhelming power honing in on him. Chakra she called it, as she slaughtered his comrades.

"Come on out, kishin. Die with dignity," her even voice boomed all over the barren slope.

He never even noticed her. He wanted to run, he wanted to stay alive. He wanted revenge for his fallen comrades, for his fellow kishin.

The monstrously powerful woman appeared from his right like a ghost, pale, gliding through the air just above the ground, her almost white eyes and long, flowing hair would be the last thing the man would ever see. He heard she had a third eye, maybe that wasn't true, maybe that was just a myth to make her even more frightening to his people. There was no need for that. From this close she was more frightening than anything he ever saw in his life, even if it did cross his mind, just for a moment, that she had that aristocratic kind of beauty, even with those horns.

Embarrassingly enough, her last vision of him wouldn't be a brave last stand of resistance by one of the remaining few kishin fighting her. It would be him, on his knees and sobbing uncontrollably.

"Your soul power truly is pathetic," she sounded almost disappointed and he knew she wasn't talking just about him. She was saying that about kishin as a whole.

Anger swelled up within him as his arm burst in flames. "I am a kishin! A human born in this world gifted with the ability to manifest my soul!" he collected all of his energy, focused it all in his fist. "Even if you kill me, even if you kill all of us new kishin will appear, someone, someday will-" he never even figured out how she killed him. It's just that, one moment he was alive, the next he wasn't.

Almost ironically the death of an unknown kishin the last of resistance began crumbling. The plans to regroup and attack again were effortlessly thwarted and mere weeks after she set out to do so Kaguya won her war against kishin. Chakra took over as the dominant form of power and the centuries of humans living in harmony with kishin and developing together ended. A new era began, an era in which the truth became a lie.

An era in which kishin was no longer a human, but with an ability to manifest and control their soul, but a creature separate from humankind. A new species, one that could rebel if given an opportunity, one whose numbers had to be carefully controlled to strike a balance between enough to be useful, not enough to be dangerous.

~X~

Over six centuries later and without any idea about what happened back then a blond man finished wrapping a broken katana with a cloth. He stood up, bowed to it, and placed it in a box to be buried along with other brave warriors that fell in the battle. The candle lights illuminating the wooden shed wouldn't last for much longer, but it hardly mattered. The funeral would be tomorrow when the storm raging outside would hopefully pass. There was a tall, muscular man with short brown hair behind him.

"You do know kishin don't usually get buried with humans, right, Inomaru-kun," the man said, almost purely to remind Inomaru that what he was doing wasn't a custom.

"Vergil protected my family for decades, Sarutobi-san. Ignoring the customs is the least I can do," Inomaru wouldn't be persuaded otherwise, not even by the head of the Sarutobi clan. As far as status went he was the head of the Yamanaka clan, he was essentially equal to the man behind him, even if the experience and age gave the older Sarutobi more authority.

The head of the Sarutobi clan nodded. "I believe no one will openly complain about your actions. That being said, it's better to have a good start without anyone causing internal issues."

Yes. The creation of an alliance between his Yamanaka clan and two other clans, Nara and Akimichi, with close involvement from the Sarutobi clan. It even included a combination between the next generation, an Ino-Shika-Cho formation, as they called it. There was one key requirement his clan needed to meet though.

No alliance with kishin.

Nara and Akimichi clans had long since worked together and Sarutobi clan was involved with them, however, Yamanaka clan knew jutsu that would exponentially strengthen the practicality of Nara-Akimichi combination. They tried again and again to get the Yamanaka clan to join them and Inomaru's clan wanted that as well. There was an issue the two clans couldn't get over.

The Yamanaka-Leonidas relationship that lasted for almost two centuries and was the reason the Yamanaka clan, with abilities more suited for support, rather than combat, survived many wars without an alliance with other clans.

The Leonidas were one of the rare families of kishin. A special family whose children were always born as kishin and didn't need to turn into a kishin sometime during their childhood. For some reason, they were almost exclusively born with the darkness attribute as their soul. Vergil wasn't. He was born with the lightning attribute, black lightning instead of darkness and he had one duty. Protecting the head of the Yamanaka clan even if it cost him his life.

"To me, Vergil wasn't just a kishin servant and Nara-san and Akimichi-san know that just as well as you do, Sarutobi-san," Inomaru reminded the man. As the lightning struck a nearby tree he turned around to look at the man. He felt like he already did enough when he accepted to cut ties with Leonidas family. Something that was much easier to do since Vergil, as far as Inomaru knew, didn't have any children of his own.

Inomaru was wrong though, as a boy, no older than nine, with messy white hair and completely black eyes, played with darkness surrounding him. Unknowingly to even Vergil himself, the Leonidas bloodline was continued through his child.

Away from the Yamanaka clan, away from the vows that bound the two clans together, the bond was broken and it wouldn't be repaired for generations. Eventually though, for better or for worse and without either of the two knowing, an old bond would resurface and a Leonidas would stand as the sword and shield for a Yamanaka once again.

~X~

The Hokage residence was one of the safest places in the Konoha, as it naturally would be due to the strongest person in the village living there. For that reason, there was an almost mythical location underneath the residence, rumored to be a very special prison that was rarely used.

So, as curious as young Uzumaki Naruto was, there was only one thing left to do. See if the prison existed. He was snaking around the residence for weeks, believing himself to be an expert at doing so by now. He wasn't bad, for his age, but it was only the orders from the Hokage himself that kept the five-year-old from being caught by the guards. Even when he did stumble upon a hidden mechanism that opened a door leading underneath the building. No-one stopped him.

No-one stopped him when he sneaked past a couple of chunin and dashed down the corridor. Or when he loudly skidded to a stop in front of a cell he heard breathing from. Naruto's five-year-old brain stopped working for a few moments when he came face to face with… something. "An armor?" his eyes widened as he watched through the bars.

There was an armor, a very dark, almost entirely black, armor with spikes protruding from the shoulders and back. The helmet looked sharp, it even had two horns on the sides. The long white hair coming from underneath the helmet looked almost jarring compared to the black armor, like a contrast that barely worked. If the armor wasn't breathing Naruto would be sure it wasn't alive. But it was breathing, it even raised its' head as it knelt there, in the middle of the cell, chained to the walls.

The kishin that had long since forgotten his own name could only see in shades of gray ever since darkness covered his eyes five years ago. He wished he could see the boy in front of his cell if only to see the actual color of the boy's hair. The boy was small, perhaps about five years old and his hair was light, it looked nearly white in his eyes, and his heart twisted in agony.

Perun would have been five, almost six by now. If only he was still alive. Maybe he would also be shivering like the boy. He didn't know it, but it was cold outside and it wasn't much different where he was.

There was a yell and the boy yelped before running away from some other humans. It was over. He could slowly waste his life away now. He prolonged every second of his slow death. He deserved it. He couldn't protect his own son.

The same boy came back less than a week later. Maybe he was curious. "What are you dattebayo?" he suddenly asked, speaking for the first time.

The kishin didn't speak, he wasn't sure he could even if he wanted to.

"Are you cold?" Naruto kept asking question after question and the kishin watched as the boy struggled to push the doors open. "You don't look cold. Is something warming you up?" Naruto carefully approached, he didn't look scared, he wasn't scared.

The kishin couldn't decide if it was because the boy was certain of his safety due to all the chains around the kishin or too dumb to realize the potential danger.

Realizing it was just as cold inside the cell Naruto pouted and sat down with his legs crossed. "Nothing…" he was disappointed, actually, really disappointed.

That was when the kishin noticed the boy wasn't dressed for the cold. He had a jacket and some tattered scarf on, but the clothes weren't nearly warm enough. So, he did what he wished he could have done for his son.

Naruto yelped when he suddenly got engulfed in a mass of darkness, but he immediately settled down when he realized it wasn't hurting him and more importantly that it was warm. "Huh? What's this?" the boy sat in the darkness, it felt warm and that was all that really mattered in the cold.

The kishin watched him, perhaps Perun would have been like this. Curious enough to approach him? Calm in the middle of the darkness? The kishin didn't know. He'd never know. His son was dead, if he wasn't, if he was alive, the kishin wouldn't have lost himself. He wanted to know the boy's name, he wanted to listen to the boy talking. So, he opened his mouth, several times, but nothing came out.

Naruto noticed, even as he enjoyed the sudden and very welcome warmth from an unknown source he still noticed. "Are you okay?" he asked, looking curiously at the one kneeling in front of him.

The kishin struggled to move his head, but he managed to give the boy a barely noticeable nod. He tried again, this time a single word managed to come out in a raspy, disembodied voice. "Name?"

The boy stumbled backward and slipped, landing on the darkness cushioning his fall. Slowly he pointed a finger at himself. "My?"

Another small nod.

The boy looked around for a bit and then, after a brief silence, he grinned. "I'm Naruto! Uzumaki Naruto!" he declared.

Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto. The kishin would remember that. It was the third thing he knew ever since he lost himself. His deceased son Perun, this cell he was in and now, the strange boy that wasn't afraid of him, Naruto.

~X~

Kishin were not having the best time of their lives nowadays. Most of them were either captured or running from someone or something. Arguably the worst fate for a kishin was to be in one of the research facilities built all over the five great nations. That's where he was, a boy with brown eyes, short white hair, a bit tall for his age, which was almost six years old.

Perun yawned as he did his best to keep up with the doctor's pace. It was really late and he really wanted to go back to bed, but he knew better than to make one of these doctors mad. This one also had that strange symbol on his uniform, like a flipped A cut in half horizontally or something and a seven-sided shape, he couldn't remember how it was called, behind it. That mark meant no messing around. Don't run, don't cause trouble, just do what they say. That's what Valeria told him when he tried to mess with one of them before.

The doctor led him into a room and he saw there were three other doctors waiting. "Tsubame-sama, LK-16-2-Cobalt is here," they called him by that name again.

'That's not my name,' he wanted to yell, but he didn't, not when they locked the doors and he took in the room for the first time. It was a dimly lit room with glass cabinets, a bed, and several chairs in the middle. Those kinds of rooms usually meant research. 'Did they want to do another test thing?' his brown eyes relaxed. He didn't run from tests. That only got him in trouble. If he made trouble he couldn't get sold, but if he ran from tests he'd get killed, so he didn't run.

"Come here," the somewhat older man that was still quite a bit taller than most people in the room, with dark gray hair and a monocle over his left eye told him. Perun guessed this was Tsubame.

Perun nodded and approached the man. With a single gesture, the man made it clear he wanted Perun to get on the bed, so he did. And he silently sat there as they rolled up the sleeve of his white shirt and inserted a needle into his vein. They took the usual sample but instead of stopping they continued and half a minute later Perun began looking at the needle, at the blood going into a bag? His heartbeat got quicker, surely they didn't need that much? He reached up to yank the needle out only to find his left arm strapped to the bed. When did they?

"Don't move Cobalt," Tsubame's voice was quiet, but there was a promise of pain if Perun disobeyed him.

So, he didn't move. He kept sitting there until his vision became blurry and he felt like losing consciousness. Over five minutes had passed since they stuck the needle into his arm and he fell back. By the time the bag was filled he had no idea how much blood he lost or how much time passed. He felt weak, too weak to even watch as they took his blood somewhere.

Tsubame carefully split the blood into two new bags before pouring a vial of light red liquid into each of them. Suddenly some of the blood turned cobalt blue, it didn't mix with the red though, it just remained there. With a silent motion, he got his assistants to continue on. Quickly the two of Tsubame's assistants got the bags ready and inserted two more needles, one in each of Perun's arms.

As the blood came down the tubes they tied him to the bed so tightly he was sure it would leave a mark and then the blood entered his body.

His mouth opened in a silent scream, his entire body shaking as he felt more electricity coursing through it than ever before. It felt like his soul was being torn into pieces by his own lightning.

"It's no good! He's too young!" Perun was sure someone yelled that, but all the voices felt so distant, so far from him, from everything.

It hurt. It hurt worse than anything he ever experienced. His muscles cramped, his body uncontrollably convulsing on the bed. He felt bindings digging into his skin, drawing blood, but that was nothing. Nothing compared to the lightning burning his body from the inside. And then, just as it began it stopped and his eyes widened as the lightning emerged from his body. His mouth closed as it descended upon him, right into his right eye, forever changing it to cobalt blue, the feeling on his skin, as if something was being carved into it paled in comparison as he gasped for air and ripped the bindings off. He sat up, feeling stronger than ever as the blood trickled down from the fresh wound next to his right eye. "Varpulis," the word slipped from his mouth before he even realized it. It was an unknown word, yet he felt like he understood its' meaning better than he ever understood any other word.

~X~

Uchiha Itachi, wearing his standard ANBU uniform, stood on top of the Hokage residence, looking at the faces carved into the mountain, faces of the four men that were recognized as Hokage. He wished he could talk to all of them, not just the Sandaime. He killed nearly half of his clan between killing his parents and others involved in the planning of the coup as well as those that refused to accept him as the new head of the Uchiha clan. He did it to stop the civil war within Konoha, to protect the village and Sasuke, to keep the peace.

Yet, after last night and the Kiri shinobi snaking into Konoha to attack several head families of the Konoha's main clans and successfully killing or injuring quite a few of them the peace was no longer an option. Itachi dreaded the war, he desperately tried to prevent any war from occurring and dragging his innocent, precious, little brother into hell he saw all those years ago.

It was out of his control though. Momochi Zabuza was an ambitious Mizukage and he grew even stronger after someone gave him the kishin abilities. Not only that, but back then a war was about to break out between Kumo and Iwa, and between those two events the Konoha had no other choice but to keep the Uchiha clan, even if it was severely weakened.

The Kumo-Iwa war passed without Konoha getting involved, but Kiri just began another war and their attack nearly cost Itachi the lives of two people he loved the most. So, the eighteen years old head of the Uchiha clan turned around, ready for the Hokage's orders. If the war between Konoha and Kiri couldn't be avoided, he'd do as much as he could to end it either as quickly as possible or as far from Konoha as possible.

Well, that's it for this chapter. I intend to create an AU vastly different from the main story, like, some things will still happen, one way or another, but a lot of things will also go down very differently. I also intend to make a darker world, however, that doesn't mean deaths left and right. Finally, kishin, I'm basically borrowing the name and changing the meaning behind it. Hopefully, that won't be too much of an issue. Anyway, thank you for reading, I appreciate it. Consider leaving a review, it really motivates me.